Turning Your Why? Into Why Not!

Introduction

THE PURPOSE OF THIS book is to help you become comfortable about questioning yourself, your beliefs, and your ideology. Purpose-filled lives require us to occupy a consciousness of questioning our culture, society, and the established systems that we operate within as we inhabit this plane of existence.  Self-actualization demands that we discern if the beliefs we hold are our truths or the truths of our parents and society. Becoming self-aware means we are fearless in questioning areas that may have been considered taboo, such as our understanding of God and human sexuality.

This work asks us to look at long held beliefs we may hold about ourselves and others, while being willing to ask the tough questions such as, Are my beliefs true? Whose belief is this? Who told me this was truth and why do I continue to believe this? What would it mean if I created my own beliefs? The Socratic quote, "The unexamined life is not worth living" is a powerful statement to the journey to self-awareness, spiritual enlightenment, and freedom from oppression.

My hope in this modern-day tale of trauma and over-coming resistance to what is, you will find useful tools in which to examine your own life. This is a daring call to your life’s purpose by your willingness to look at life’s stresses, injustices, confusions, and difficulties in a new way that allows you to find fulfillment and peace once again. This means you will also have an opportunity to look at your unconscious biases, we all have them – yes even me, discern what biases you have, decide which ones you choose to release, and which ones you keep.

The goal of this book is to help you remember your Truth again. Your Truth is that you are a Divine human being. Life’s experiences have a way of making us forget this Truth. My purpose is to remind you through real-life experiences that you too can live in this world as your Truth in a more peace-filled and loving way led by Spirit.

Chapter 1

Why? Child Defies God

WE ARE BORN AND WE die. Everything in-between is change. We spend so much of our time resisting change. Even holding on to the past when the past is painful and no longer serves us. But we find comfort in knowing that pain. We know what it feels like and what to expect from that pain. This was how I lived the first thirty years of my life.

My badge of honor in life: I’m a strong woman who is a survivor. A survivor of trauma, survivor of re-created trauma, and Olympic medalist in pain endurance. How could I see myself any other way? It is from our own life experiences that we see and interact with people. It’s from our perception of good and evil, right and wrong, love and hate that we view others’ words and actions. We compare our lives to theirs, and come up with either scenario: they have had a charmed life, while our own life has been hell, or we are better than them and they are unworthy. Yet, we have no idea what their walk and journey has been. We just react to their words or actions gleaned from our self-conceived ideas.

Truth: You create your own heaven or your own hell—no one else, nothing else. There is no one persecuting, dishonoring, or disrespecting you more than you. We live at a time when we are trying to make sense of a world that seems to no longer make sense. In our humanity we want to figure out why people do and say the things they do. Why is this happening? Why...?

I too started my life as a Why? child. Why is the sky blue? Why do I have to eat vegetables? Why is red, red? Why are kids so mean? I remember my mom saying to me in frustration, "If you ask me why one more time, I will scream." At the time I thought Mom didn’t know the answers and this was her way of dealing with me. I was about five years old at the time and knew my mission was to find the answers.

When I was a child, I would have mystical experiences with Jesus. I didn’t realize at the early age of five that I was astral projecting my spirit out of my body to commune with God. If you are wondering how I could do such a thing as such an early age, the answer is trauma. Astral projection became a way for me to feel safe during traumatic times in my early childhood. My parents fought violently when they were married, but it didn’t seem to become vicious until we moved from England and started living in the United States. I think the stress of the change to American culture became too much. But as they fought, especially at night, I would leave my body and speak with God. Each time I was bathed in love and comfort. Each time I would beg to stay and be told it wasn’t my time. Each time I was told I would be okay and I needed to return.

As a young child I loved the mysteries of the Universe; I was excited by knowing there was someone up there who cared about me; to me, it was a real relationship. It wasn’t until my indoctrination by my family that things changed. My family raised me in a very conservative religious upbringing, where one followed the rules to be worthy of God. But there was a secret. My mom and my gran were also practicing Obeah. You may ask, What is Obeah? I found an article entitled 6 Types of Witches from Around the World at the website, Mental Floss that had a simple explanation of Obeah:

As a folk magic-religion hybrid, Obeah flourished in the West Indies during the slave trade largely as a force of resistance. The dark magic uses spells to make predictions, gain knowledge, or obtain assistance for any task. While Obeah isn’t a religion in the sense that there is any sort of established church or ceremonies, female and male practitioners are seen as spiritual guides that can help with any number of problems.

This practice is done on an individual basis and has no creed but is often syncretized with Christianity. In my home life, Obeah was hidden, couldn’t be mentioned to anyone, and if it was spoken about, it was spoken in codes. The secrecy comes from the persecution of those who practiced it during times of slavery. As Christianity was forced into the culture of enslaved people, Obeah was condemned as black magic. So it was known in our home that Christian churches would frown on this practice.

To create even more chaos in my comprehension of the world, I was educated at a private grammar school in a Catholic community, which led to my being baptized and then confirmed as a Catholic. The teachings were so opposed to the secrets that were going on at home that I often felt confused and anxious. I learned in Catholic school about a magical, all-powerful, and vengeful God. I was sure this God would smite my family down. When that didn’t occur, I did the best I could to ignore any witchcraft going on in the home.

While in complete contradiction, at least in my mind, my family still used the Bible as a tool to force their ideologies on me. As I grew up, Catholicism became ingrained as my own belief system, and I came to fear God. This concept of God stayed with me until I was in my late twenties, when I started to individuate. Once I started to challenge the Catholic teachings, I became really angry at God, and if anyone asked me about my religion, I would say I was a recovering Catholic.

My relationship with God had become so difficult that I decided I was not even going to have a conversation, furthermore, a relationship, to a deity that could be so cruel. I had numerous crises of faith, until I had no faith; I was just this rage-filled person, angry with a punishing God. At this stage of my spiritual development, my concept of God was a powerful superman on the throne in heaven. I was furious with God; I felt that he was punishing me unnecessarily. After all, I was a nerd and geek girl: A+ student, no drugs, no sex, no smoking.

As I embraced adulthood, navigating the world was filled with hardships. I’m a good person and didn’t deserve to be enduring such hardships. In my mind my questions continued: What kind of God would allow me to be born into an abusive family? What kind of God would allow me to marry an alcoholic, who was unfaithful and a bigamist? What kind of God would take my unborn baby? What kind of God would allow me to be a widow at the age of twenty-six when the alcoholic husband died of acute alcohol intoxication? What kind of God would force me to file for bankruptcy because said husband committed financial fraud? I was enraged with this kind of God. I also hated the Bible, and felt it was written by men abusing their power and authority. I had been Bible-thumped by my family and ministers for too many years.

Fast-forward twenty years and my why practice was making me a very unhappy person. My questions of why were rarely answered with satisfaction; if anything, I became more cynical and despairing of a world filled with immoral, corrupt, narcissistic, rage-fueled human beings. I wanted off this planet now. I was filled with depression and would have been relieved to die. I wasn’t technically suicidal, but I had ideations of not living, of not waking up in the morning, of possibly getting killed by someone (painlessly, of course) so I wouldn’t have to deal with this world anymore. I felt this way because my interpretations of the ways of the world were unconscionable and I couldn’t find answers that were satisfying or Truth.

One of my mentors and friend Martha Creek has a saying, "Why is the road to hell! When I first heard that statement I howled with laughter; there is a simple truth in that statement. I thought of all the times I asked the question why. My reasoning behind the question included: to understand others, to know truths, to find answers, to find a reason for being, to explain the unexplainable, to feel comfortable in my own skin. Hmm, after laughing at the statement Why is the road to hell! I became annoyed, and then got ticked off because asking why" was my practice in navigating a world that didn’t make sense to me into one that could make sense.

GOD HUMBUG

What kind of God who is omniscient and omnipotent would allow all this suffering? In my indoctrinated understanding, it was an awful God, a God not worthy of my praise or adoration. So began my separation and justified anger with a deity that possessed no compassion for us mortals. I’ll show God, I thought. I don’t need him, and my life will be so much better under my own control. I believed life was hard and unfair. But I also believed I could overcome any hardship if I continued working and striving for a better life, have a home, and eventually create my own family. That’s the dream we all are told we must achieve to be acknowledged as successful. Who needs God for that?

Yet, as I continued living, I felt not whole in my life, something significant was missing. I tried to live my life with dignity and kindness to others, but I felt lost and so alone even when with other people. This set me on a journey of discovery. I think it’s the wisdom of our souls that creates this feeling of discontent to push us to awaken. In my spiritual search I experienced, practiced, and embraced many religions and traditions. I studied many different Christian religious sects, which included Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Jehovah Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventist, and then explored nondenominational Christian ministries. I also delved into the other two Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Islam. Imagine my surprise at discovering that each of the three religions Islam, Judaism, and Christianity originate from the same place, through Abraham’s sons. I’m shocked at how much violence, damage, ethnic cleansing mankind has engaged in on behalf of the right religion.

In my spiritual journey, I unearthed there is an overriding hierarchy of patriarchy that underpins each of those religions. This led me to ask myself what was before the Abrahamic religions. I then became a Wiccan practitioner for many years, embracing the Divine feminine and rituals. I later delved into studying Eastern religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism.

My journey into self-actualization included coming to the awareness that I had experienced childhood abuse, and discovering patterns of behavior in my adult relationships that were attempts to heal my childhood. Part of my self-renewal was individuating and owning myself, as well as learning to make better choices in relationships. Yet, something vital was still missing; I was still having an unfulfilled intellectual relationship with God, and my search for a new understanding of God commenced again.

Eventually, in the late eighties I found Unity, a transdenominational spiritual community built on New Thought principles and ideology. I started at the Unity in New York City, with the Reverend Eric Butterworth. The messages were transformational, and I loved it there. As my spiritual life became richer, I transcended religious dogma. My life started to shift and flourish. I felt hopeful about life and looked forward to new positive things coming into my life. I remember thinking people should know about another way to see God, through the lens of love and goodness. This was the first time I thought it would it be cool to share this with others.

But it took me another thirty years in the wilderness before I came to realize my purpose is to help others find a new way of seeing God, while facilitating a safe space to allow individuals to shift consciousness and live as the frequency of Love in the world. As I look back on those wilderness years, it would be easy to label those years as wasted time and missed opportunities, but in reality I came to realize that those wilderness years were blessings, not failures.

I won’t lie to you and tell you God whispered in my ear, Sheree, you will be a Unity minister, and I said, Yippee. Nope, in my human wisdom, I ran for many years. I had all these rational thoughts about why I couldn’t go into ministry, such as my professional career was vital and necessary to make money to support myself. But the career of my intellect blocked my Divine truth, my life purpose. You see under all that logic was a belief that was untrue: I wasn’t worthy enough. I believed that I was without power to manifest a world that can work for all beings.

Becoming a minister at this late time in my life—I started seminary in 2013 at the age of fifty—allowed me to do the healing and deep self-awareness work necessary to be a new kind of minister. I am a minister who sees each person as the Divine incarnated, therefore, worthy and valued. Many of us have experienced or heard of ministers that have burnt out, damaged congregants, divided ministries. If I had become a minister twenty or thirty years ago, I could have easily become one of those ministers because I didn’t have the maturity, wisdom, and grace that I do today. So I have a sense of gratitude for my experiences and lives lived.

How did I go from being angry and having no relationship with God to becoming a minister? To be honest, having a relationship or not having a relationship with God is